In a VoIP customer premise, present implementations of VoIP services use a telephone port in a Terminal Adaptor (TA) associated with a single phone number as the interface to a VoIP enabled customer premise. Extensions that are associated with the particular telephone port and its associated phone number are typically considered in the same vein as Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) extensions. For instance, when a phone call destined to the telephone port in a TA that has been assigned a particular phone number comes into a VoIP customer premise, all the extensions that are connected to the telephone port in that TA will ring simultaneously and any of the extensions connected to the telephone port in that TA can be used to answer the incoming call. An extension is a telephone set connected to the telephone port in a TA that has been assigned a particular phone number. Once a particular extension connected to the TA is engaged in a phone call, the remaining extensions in the customer premise connected to the TA will not be able to make and receive calls. Note that if a TA is equipped with multiple telephone ports, then each of these telephone ports will be assigned a different phone number and operate independently from each other.
Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus for providing extension management in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) customer premises in a packet network, e.g., a VoIP network.